Speech, a powerful means of communication that has existed for about 1.5 million years, has brought both happiness and anger to humans. It has been used to create poetry and denunciations, and even to confess love.
Despite its importance, it seems that people today often prefer to express themselves through writing, even in situations where a brief conversation would suffice. This can be seen in the frequent use of social media to share complaints and engage in arguments, as well as in the reluctance of some people to speak up in public settings such as on public transportation.
For example, a post on the Reddit community “Mildly Infuriating” received 43,000 upvotes and over 4,000 comments in just a few days, even though the issue could have likely been resolved with a few words spoken in person. It’s worth considering why this might be the case and whether we should make more of an effort to use speech as a means of communication.
While traveling by plane, the author of the post noticed that the woman in the seat in front of her had attached a back support pillow.
Just before takeoff, they realized that they weren’t able to open their tray table because the back support pillow she attached to her seat covered the tray table with its straps.
The straps were preventing them from opening their tray table, but instead of addressing the issue, they chose to write an angry post about it.
Instead of politely asking the woman to remove the straps, they took a photo of the locked tray table and shared it online.
Readers mostly poked fun at the author for their handling of the situation. Many said they’d just unclip the straps themselves while others say they should’ve just talked to the woman.
“Tell the person in front of you that you want your table and you are unclipping them, mildly infuriating that people don’t want to communicate anymore,” some said. “Hell, can tell them you can clip them back up after you’re done with the table.”
Readers also wonder whether taking the issue online rather than handling it in person is even worth it.
As it turns out, these types of incidents are all too common for people on planes.
So many people have turned to the internet to vent about horrible in-flight experiences. From children jumping on tray tables, to people removing their shoes, some travelers say they’d pay extra for adults-only flights to make sure there’d be no kids.
The author later confirmed that shortly before takeoff, the woman herself removed the pillow and wasn’t planning on using it the rest of the flight.
Discourse on proper in-flight etiquette is often a hot topic on platforms like TikTok. Particularly the debate over whether switching seats with someone is appropriate when services like seat selection are offered by the airline.
h/t: BoredPanda